CAB7-1 — Page 31

Page 31

Printed for the use of the Colonial Office.

SECRET AND CONFIDENTIAL.

Fourth Report of a Colonial Defence Committee on the Tem- porary Defences of Heligoland, St Helena, Sierra Leone, Barbados, Jamaica, and Newfoundland.

Sir,

Admiral Sir Alexander Milne, Bart., G.C.B., to the Colonial Office.

*

Committee Room, Whitehall, April 17, 1878.

I AM requested by the Committee on Colonial Defence to transmit, for the informa- tion of the Right Honourable the Secretary of State for the Colonies, reports on the places named in the margin, which, with those previously sent, comprise all the more important ports in the Colonies, which, in the absence of further instructions from Sir Michael Hicks Beach, they have thought it necessary to consider.

Some of the ports in the Dominion of Canada are of equal and even of greater importance than some of those on which the Committee have reported; but their perma- nent defences, together with their armaments having, with the exception of the military port of Halifax, been handed over to the Dominion Government, the responsibility of providing for their defence would appear to devolve upon that Government.

The Committee have reported specially on Esquimalt and Victoria, in British Columbia, as also on Heligoland, in compliance with instructions referring thereto.

The Committee request me to state that they have not considered the measures to be taken for the defence of Aden nor of Ascension; the former being under the Indian Government, and the latter being-as will be seen by the annexed Admiralty letter- provided for by that Department.t

The Committee request me further to state, that although some of the ports they have considered are of consequence, not only as commercial but as military ports and coaling stations, they have not entered upon the question of the defence of ports which, though of little commercial value, may under certain circumstances become of great importance strategically as coaling stations for Her Majesty's ships, such for instance as Fiji and the Falkland Islands; the former being the only British territory between the Australian Colonies and the west coast of America, and the latter between the West Indies and British Columbia.

The Committee have also not considered it their duty to make inquiries or report on the military stations, Malta, Gibraltar, Bermuda, and Halifax, the defences of which as fortresses are especially provided for by the War Department.

I have, &c. (Signed)

ALEX. MILNE, President.

[574]

* Heligoland, St. Helena, Sierra Leone, Barbados, Jamaica, and Newfoundland. † See Miscellaneous, No. 35D.

Page 31

Page 31

Page 31